Cool New Class: The Fhitting Room

Interval training rocks and while I KNOW it's good for me, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) classes kinda freak me out, so when I walked in to The Fhitting Room, NYC's first boutique HIIT studio, I couldn't stop my knees from shaking. After I realized that the studio had a sprung floor and you know, that's why my knees were shaking, I finally calmed down a little bit.

The Fhitting Room offers their Signature Fhix in a small-group training environment — there were nine people in my class, and we filled the entire studio! And just as I expected, the 50-minute workout seriously kicked my butt. Kettlebells, free weights, burpees, squats, lunges, pushups, planks, rowing machines and Jungle Gym straps were all part of the class, so really, what DIDN’T we do?

The idea of HIIT workouts is to really push yourself for short periods of time with active rest in between for maximum calorie burn before and after your workout. I pushed myself harder than I normally would during a workout on my own, which is one of the reasons HIIT classes are both effective and appealing — try a HIIT workout on your own, and you’re tempted to take it down a notch — trust. HIIT workouts can be extremely effect if you feel like you’ve hit a plateau in your workouts, both mentally and physically. There isn’t a second of time spared to even get bored, and your muscles will be thrown into utter confusion, which is a good thing, natch.

Look for HIIT workouts in studios and gyms in your area (they’ll be on the rise, mark our words!) or pop into one of these heart pumping classes that we tracked down.